Science Of The Times

About Science Of The Times

Do you want to learn a little more about topical science findings? Do many of the science stories you hear leave you with unanswered questions? Syma and Tim will discuss in non-technical language and in a fun and engaging style, recently published science findings. Guests will be authors of these papers and will include some of the world’s most exciting scientists who are pushing the frontiers of human knowledge. Covering, among other things, artificial intelligence, the search for alien life, the latest treatments for diseases, quantum computers, the science of football and topics requested by listeners, the half hour episodes will leave listeners feeling a little more knowledgeable about cutting-edge science and how scientists make discoveries.

Publisher

Tim Coulson And Syma Khalid

Category

science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Feb 2025

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 51 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   A follicing good time

   Humans are weird compared to other animals in the way our hair is arranged. We have distinct patches like armpits, eyebrows, beards and pubes in a way that other animals do not. Have you ever wondered why? The Canada-based author Judy Wearing has, and she has written a fabulous book about called “Anxious and Hardy: The Evolution and Culture of Human Hair”. Tim and Syma talk, discovering we don’t really know whey we have pubic hair, but we do know why we have eyebrows, and you will be probably be amazed to learn why. Here is the link to Judy's fantastic book https://judywearing.com/anxiousandhairy/

2. 

   11 Sept 2026

   Miniature mastodons and graviportal pigeons

   Big animals evolve to be small on islands, while tiny ones get large. The dodo, for example, was a massive pigeon, while Sicily used to be home to miniature elephants.  Why does this pattern emerge? Tim and Syma talk to Tim’s wife, Sonya Clegg, about her career exploring oceanic islands in search of odd birds in an attempt to explain why evolution works like this.

3. 

   7 Aug 2026

   The Mighty Mite

   Tim and Syma talk to Isabel Smallegange who is interested in tiny little eight-legged animals called mites. Why would anyone study these things and what can they tell us about how the world works?Could they even have agency?These little animals are more fascinating than you might imagine, and Isabel does an amazing job in bringing their world to life.Isabel's Website: https://isabelsmallegange.com/If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - streamingspirespodcasts@gmail.comAdvertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.

Inside a recent episode

How To Build A Sustainable World

Published 15 May 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] The technological changes or the societal behavioral changes. And those the latter won't be even across the whole planet either, right? That's right. Yeah, it's really it is hard to to sort of see how different sort of interventions are different technologies and different social changes. How fast they can really move. We do know though that yes, technologies can be very powerful once we get the costs down for technologies. We start to adopt them anyway. So the big example on this is renewable technology. So the renewable technologies of wind and solar, for example, have come down massively in price. […]

Who has been a guest on Science Of The Times

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Jamie Woodward
• Henry Gee
• Simon Newstead
• David Bennet
• Aura Raulo

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

126,434

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 66 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

95

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

0

Contact Science Of The Times

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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